The Stogie Guys

Just like any other fantastic hobby (it’s not a habit), cigar smoking should be more relaxing than cumbersome. But there are a few rules you should follow in order to respect your fellow man and, more importantly, get the most out of your experience. Since I’ve already shared with you my tips on cutting and lighting stogies, I think now is a great time to discuss proper cigar etiquette.

1) Where to smoke. It goes without saying that if you’re on your own property, smoke ‘em if you got ‘em. But – if you’re like me – most of your stogies are smoked outside your personal realm and in the presence of other Americans. If you’re at a friend’s place, it never hurts to ask. That’s the considerate thing to do, whether your outdoors enjoying a barbeque or indoors enjoying a game of Parcheesi. Nine times out of ten when you’re outside, cigar smoking will be OK (just make sure there’s an ash tray around so you’re not sullying your friend’s deck, patio, plants, etc.). Conversely, nine times out of ten when you’re inside, smoking will be off limits. Just make sure to abide by your gracious host’s wishes, whatever they may be.

Now if you happen to be out at an establishment – not covered by a Draconian smoking ban – and you witness patrons smoking cigarettes, but you’re not sure if cigars are allowed (say, at Grumpy’s in Baltimore with a bunch of your buddies on Saturday night after you violently and seriously stubbed your toe in a drunken stupor on the way to the bar) it’s best to ask one of the establishment’s employees. In my case, Grumpy’s had no policy against cigars – so I lit up a La Rosa Cubana. Some patrons may bitch and moan (even people smoking cigarettes, which I can’t understand), but too bad for them. You’re well within your rights to completely ignore their objections. Just like private residences, when you’re at a private establishment it’s necessary to abide by the owner’s policies.

2) When to ash. First off, let me once again reiterate that you must ash in an ashtray. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen cigar smokers ash on floors, in potted plants – even in toilets. Tisk, tisk.

That being said, when to ash is a much more convoluted topic. Any Stogie Guy will tell you that letting the ash build up at the foot of your cigar is a good thing – it cools the smoke thereby increasing the flavor of the stogie. But if you let the ash grow too long, it can fall at an unexpected and inconvenient time. My advice is this: If you’re somewhere falling ash won’t be a big problem (say, on a golf course), go ahead and let it accumulate for an inch or so. But if you’re at a fancy cocktail party standing on a $15,000 Persian rug, ash early and ash often.

3) When to take off the band. While some say it’s showy and impolite to leave the band on your cigar, I couldn’t disagree more. In my experience, leaving the band on is a great conversation starter that helps cigar aficionados meet one another.

If you do decide to remove the cigar band, make sure you let the cigar heat up before taking it off. The heat from the foot will help loosen the glue that holds the band on. It’s also important to note that taking the band off some brands of Cuban cigars (even after heating), like the Montecristo, is very difficult and can result in damage to the cigar wrapper. So in my personal opinion, keep the band on as long as you like – just don’t smoke it.

Follow these simple steps and your next stogie experience will be even more pleasant. If you have any additional tips of your own, please feel free to leave a comment. Happy smoking!

-Patrick A

As our readers are no doubt aware, we are baseball fans as well as Stogie Guys. (I root for the surging Mets, while Patrick A is a fan of the pitiable Cubs.)

And while you may be tired of our rantings about baseball, cigars, and the Washington Nationals’ apparent indifference to having half their stadiums’ seats remain empty (even though a plan to put paying customers in some of those seats already exists), I am going to harp on this issue some more with the promise that – barring something extraordinary – it will be the last time for a while.

Last week in the Weekly Wrapper column the godfather of cigar publications, Cigar Aficionado, weighed in on the whole baseball and cigars issue. Author and Mets fan Mike Marsh writes:

What’s also exciting, at least from a cigar smoker’s standpoint, is the recent influx of cigar bars into Major League ballparks. OK, so it’s only been two, but isn’t that a start?

In April, PNC Park, home of the Pittsburgh Pirates and host of this year’s All-Star Game, opened the Montecristo Club. Then in June, Christian Eiroa and Camacho Cigars struck a deal with the Detroit Tigers to open the Camacho Cigar Bar at Comerica Park. They join the Cuesta-Rey Cigar Bar at Tropicana Field, which has been accommodating cigar-smoking Devil Rays fans since 1998, as the only full-blown cigar bars in the majors.

But the key quote was from one Tigers executive who properly described the beauty of cigar smoking at the ballpark:

Baseball is a relaxing sport… Enjoying a cigar and a drink goes along with that. We want fans to have a well-rounded experience when they come to the ballpark, and cigars reach out to another segment of our fan base.

Our thoughts exactly! Now if only other teams would reach out to the cigar smoking segment of their fan bases…

-Patrick S

Note to our readers: In our ongoing effort to make StogieGuys.com as entertaining and reader-friendly as possible, we’ve decided every Friday to post a sampler of quick cigar news and/or any other stogie-related snippets we find interesting. These briefs should tide you over during those long weekends. We call ‘em Friday Samplers. Enjoy.

1) Cigar Envy recently posted a video of Pierre Salinger, JFK’s late press secretary, recalling how the president asked Salinger to find him 1,000 Cuban cigars the day before he signed the embargo banning Cuban goods.

2) A private collector in England this week paid £365 ($673) for a cigar butt that had been smoked by Sir Winston Churchill in 1950.

3) So you’ve become a Stogie Guy but now you want to make the jump to connoisseur? This tasting wheel (from the now inactive Cigar Jack site) will help you identify the many complex flavors that can be found in premium handmade stogies.

4) We’ve been meaning to review a cigar with a candela wrapper (a green wrapper, also called AMS or American Market Selection) but our friends at Stogie Review beat us to the punch. For more on candela wrappers, check out this January 3 article from Cigar Aficionado.

5) Finally, we’ve introduced a new item to our fantastic Stogie Guys store designed specially for the ladies. It’s definetly sweet.

-The Stogie Guys

I usually don’t get this excited about public transportation, but I just can’t wait for the Macanudo Bus to pull into Washington on its American Passion Tour.

A so-called “cigar lovers’ paradise on wheels”, the traveling cigar lounge allows lucky patrons to partake in premium smokes while relaxing in the luxurious bus, or outside on it’s “green carpet” decked out with high-end patio furniture.

Most recently, the bus – a mobile replica of Club Macanudo in Chicago – pulled into the PGA Tour’s Western Open in Lemont, Illinois. These fortunate golf fans (including my folks) had the opportunity to unwind in Macanudo lavishness, including a big screen television, a putting green, and a blackjack table with a dealer. Complimentary cigars abound, of course.

While it doesn’t appear as though the American Passion Tour will be rolling into the nation’s capital anytime soon, a quick glance at Macanudo’s events webpage reveals the magical mystery tour may be coming to your neck of the woods sometime in the near future (especially if you live in Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas, or Louisiana).

If you’re lucky enough to catch the bus, take some pictures and send them along with a short description of your experience. We’ll share your photos and anecdotes with Stogie Guys the world over.

One final note: How sweet would it be to earn a living driving a huge cigar bus – smoking, relaxing, and sharing stories with fine stogie enthusiasts across America? What a long, strange trip that would be…

-Patrick A

As we note in our ratings system, cigars that receive the impressive score of four out of five stogies should be enjoyed “after a delicious meal or with your favorite cocktail.” And no dish better prepares you for a fine cigar and a cocktail than a good steak dinner.

If you are looking for a great steak dinner for a special occasion, Charlie Palmer Steakhouse located at 101 Constitution Avenue NW (opposite the the National Mall and the Capitol building) may be your best choice in Washington. From decor and location, to presentation and service, Charlie Palmer gets high marks across the board.

As for price, Charlie Palmer is in line with DC’s other fine steakhouses such as Smith & Wollensky’s and Morton’s, so a group of four should expect to spend $100 per person for for a full meal including a moderately-priced bottle of wine from their extensive wine list (of course a more exotic selection from the expansive list could easily run several hundred dollars). But then I did say that a dinner at Charlie Palmer should be reserved for special occasions – or for those with bottomless expense accounts.

Appropriately, the steak was the highlight of the evening, though the oysters and tuna tartar appetizers were also favorites. At my table, two of us shared the Porterhouse for two, while the others tried the Filet Mignon: all were delicious. My only small complaint was that the time between when the Porterhouse was presented to us at the table and when it returned artfully sliced on our plates was too long, meaning that the steak was not as warm as it should have been.

After eating, we decided the only proper way to end the meal was to partake in an after-dinner stogie in Charlie Palmer’s cigar-friendly bar area (though sadly, only until DC’s smoking ban goes into effect January 2007). At the bar the friendly bartender poured me a generously portioned Knob Creek Bourbon on the rocks. And while I brought my own smoke, a flavorful Rock Patel Sun Grown Torpedo, which will be reviewed at a later time, I was pleased to see that they offered their own cigar menu with 20 or so stogies ranging from $9 for a CAO gold to a $25 Padron 1926.

So, in conclusion, if you have something to celebrate, and are looking for a great meal to enjoy as a prelude to a fine stogie, I highly recommend the Charlie Palmer Steakhouse.

-Patrick S

I don’t want to make a habit of writing posts in response to reader comments, but in our effort to make StogieGuys.com an open forum for cigar enthusiasts – and simply for the sake of invalidating false information and idiotic opinion once purported as fact – this time I can’t help myself.

An anonymous comment was left on Friday’s post regarding our proposal to the Washington Nationals to create a temporary cigar section at RFK Stadium for an upcoming home game. As you know, the Nats rebuffed our suggestion.

But this guy – who didn’t have the balls to leave his name…and who claims to have a law degree from the University of Virginia (cough) – made some superfluous and blatantly bogus fabrications apparently in an attempt to suggest that our proposal was a bad idea.

In the following paragraphs, I will address Mr. Anonymous’ ridiculous lies and outrageous claims one by one. Enjoy.

[I]t [has] been proven unprofitable for private establishments to allow smoking because of the negative impact it has on non-smokers.

Wrong. If it was profitable for private businesses to ban smoking, they would do so on their own (thereby eliminating the need for Draconian government intervention). And who could blame them? Businesses are in business to make money, and good businesses will do what it takes to increase their profit margins. Private establishments should be able to choose what amenities to offer on their own, and many have already done so. But the sad fact is that smoking bans at their root are not about business; they’re about imposing the tyranny of the majority on minority smokers.

[I]t is also illegal for RFK Stadium to have a cigar smoking facility in the stadium. In my expert legal opinion (UVA Law School ‘04) RFK would not be exempt from the Washington, DC smoking ban. Because it would be run by Aramark, the stadium’s operator, and it would be run inside the stadium it would be counted as part of the profit of the stadium. This means it would not meet the required income from tobacco products to be exempt under DC’s smoking ban. Sorry to rain on your parade.

Well, sorry to rain on your parade, but your “expert” legal opinion is utter bullshit. The DC ban only prohibits smoking in indoor public places. If you have ever been to RFK, you will notice the giant, gaping hole where a roof would need to be for the ban to apply.

That being said, I certainly do not want to discourage readers from leaving comments on StogieGuys.com. Feedback from fellow cigar-lovers is one of the most exciting and rewarding aspects of this hobby, and constructive criticism is always appreciated. But if you’re going to leave anonymous, false, and/or dim-witted ramblings, please be advised that I just might call you out on your lies.

Finally, to whoever left the comment: Grow some balls, write back, identify yourself, and engage us in debate. Anonymously hit-and-running while claiming falsehoods as expert fact is just plain cowardly.

-Patrick A

I picked up a few Don Diegos at a promotional event run by the regional Altadis rep, and hosted by Cigar Connection in Ballston. The friendly Altadis rep was suggesting to customers that the Don Diego Grandee was a similar cigar to Altadis’ famous Montecristo.

This Domincan cigar’s Connecticut wrapper had a few large veins, but overall was very pleasing to the eye and generally well-constructed. Even after I clipped the head off of this toro-sized stogie with my double guillotine cutter, the it held together flawlessly.

The cigar was easy to light and burned evenly producing a sturdy gray ash. And with the lightest lap of my finger, that ash easily dropped off after collecting for over an inch, again a sign of flawless construction – not unlike the Montecristo it was compared to.

However, when it came to taste, not only was the Don Diego not similar to a Montecristo, it didn’t even play in the same league. Montecristos are a medium to mild cigars with complex flavors. This Don Diego, on the other hand, was completely lacking in complexity and its only flavor was the dull woody taste that was transmitted to me in the form of far-too-hot smoke.

Overall, this cigar was very disappointing. I never gave much weight to claims of this stogie’s similarity to Montecristo, but I still expected it to be worthy of the Altadis name which produces such classic smokes as Romeo y Julieta, Trinidad, Saint Luis Rey, and H Upman.

So given that unfortunate disappointment, I give the Don Diego Grandee a mere two out of five stogies.

-Patrick S